Tromsø 2.1: World Cup Snapshots

8/15/2013 – There was plenty of high drama in the second round of the FIDE World Cup in Tromso – lots of points were missed and gained. This was pointed out in the Wednesday issue of Chess Today, a subscription-based online publication that is delivered daily to our mailbox. Its editor Alex Baburin provides highlights from four interesting games, and also illuminates the controversy surrounding draw claim.

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The FIDE World Cup is a knockout, starting with 128 players, with two games
(90 min for 40 moves + 30 min for the rest, with 30 seconds increment) between
pairs of players. The tiebreaks consist of two rapid games (25 min + 10
sec), then two accelerated games (10 min + 10 sec), and finally an Armageddon.
The winner and the runner-up of the World Cup 2013 will qualify for the
Candidates Tournament of the next World Championship cycle. The venue is
the city of Tromsø, which lies in the northern-most region of Norway,
almost 400 km inside the Arctic Circle. You can find all details
and links to many ChessBase
articles on Tromsø here. The World Cup starts on Sunday, August
11th and lasts until September 3rd (tiebreaks, closing ceremony). Each round
lasts three days, while the final will consist of four classical games.
Thursday August 29 is a free day. A detailed schedule can be found here.

World Cup Snapshots

Chess Today is a subscription-based
online publication that is delivered daily to your mailbox. Each issue contains
news from around the world, puzzles, interviews, book reviews and instructional
materials. The specialty is well-annotated games by GMs and IMs –
Alexander Baburin, Mikhail Golubev, Maxim Notkin and others. The deliveries
come in three different file formats: you can read the PDF file, which contains
the entire newspaper, on your computer screen or print it out and read the
text offline. CT also provides the games from each issue in two file formats:
you can use the CBV file with Chess Base or Fritz, while the PGN file will
work with most chess programs. These files enable you to play through our
games on your computer. A subscription is required in order to receive Chess
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If you click on White's 65th move, and then on the 67th and 69th in the
JavaScript player above you will see that the position occurs three times
(with the same side to move).

We are told by Paul Truong, who captured it all with his camera, that the
following transpired: Wang Hao claimed the threefold repetition, but did
so without having written down the move that would lead to it. That is an
incorrect procedure.

The arbiter awarded Dreev three extra minutes as a penalty for Wang. After
his clock started to run again Wang wrote down his move and made the claim
again, with only seven seconds to spare. At this time, it then became an
official draw.

What Dreev now claimed, very emphatically, was that his opponent had to
make a move first. This is incorrect: if Wang had done that he would have
lost his right to make his claim. So even world class players sometimes
do not know the rules. Here is the relevant paragraph in the FIDE
Laws of Chess:

9.2 The game is drawn upon a correct claim by the player having the move,
when the same position, for at least the third time (not necessarily by
a repetition of moves):

a. is about to appear, if he first writes his move on his scoresheet
and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or

b. has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.

Positions as in (a) and (b) are considered the same, if the same player
has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares,
and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same.
Positions are not the same if a pawn that could have been captured en
passant can no longer be captured in this manner. When a king or a rook
is forced to move, it will lose its castling rights, if any, only after
it is moved.

Explanation of the arbiter Ashot Vardapetyan

The situation is very simple. Let us again discuss it:

Before claiming a draw, Wang Hao offered a draw to his opponent as it
is obvious that after the planned move is made, the position will be repeated
three times. Getting no response from his opponent, Wang Hao claimed a
draw by telling the planned move to the arbiter.

The arbiter was right when he did not react on the claim as there was
an obvious failure in procedure. Then after the second claim, the arbiter
felt that Wang’s incorrect procedure claim disturbed his opponent.
Because of this, he stopped the clock.

The Chief Arbiter added time to Dreev's time to punish Wang Hao for
disturbing his opponent. This is in accordance to the rule.

Dreev did not understand why his time was added, telling all that he
has no connection with any of this.

Finally, after clarifying the situation and adding more time to Dreev’s
clock, the arbiter re-started the clock.

Here, let us make a note: in fact, no claim of draw (neither correct nor
incorrect) is recorded at this moment since Wang did not write down his
next intended move on the score sheet. There was only wrong behavior (procedure
failure) that disturbed the opponent in time trouble. At least this was
recorded by the arbiters.

The fact that Wang Hao told the move he was planning to make could have
no consequence as the move was not written down.

It was clear that Wang Hao understood his mistake after the arbiter’s
first intervention (and not after the arbiter’s tip) and was indifferent
to the punishment of adding time to his opponent’s clock.

He wrote down the move immediately after the game was restarted, stopped
the clock, and claimed a draw with no procedure failure, according to
the FIDE Rules of Chess.

Let us note that in the first case, if he wrote down a move which would
bring to incorrect claim, indeed, he would make exactly that move and
on that move he would have no right of three times repetition claim.

Then Dreev, probably, taking into no account of that nuance claimed
that his opponent lost the right of claim on that move and all the rest
conversations and explanations were only and only on that issue.

Finally, the two sides agreed on threefold repetition and no checking
of position was required as the claim of draw is also the draw offer that
is recorded immediately upon the sides agreeing to it.

I would like to thank all the minority who made the efforts to invite attention
on the facts rather than speculation as there was really no mistake by the
arbiters in this case.

See also

3/27/2018 – Sergey Karjkin didn't succeed in posing serious problems for Ding Liren and after, what he called, a "terrible blunder", he had to scramble to save a draw. That left Caruana in great shape to win the tournament. Mamedyarov struggled to find winning chances with black against Kramnik, but in the end that game ended drawn as well. Caruana, needing only a draw, was in command against Grischuk and even won the game to finish in clear first by a full point! | Photo and drawings by World Chess

See also

1/28/2018 – Magnus Carlsen won the 80th Tata Steel Masters which was decided in a blitz tiebreak over Dutch number one Anish Giri. The players contested two blitz games with 5 minutes plus 3 seconds per move, with no sudden death Armageddon game needed. Vidit played solidly to earn a draw that was enough to win the Challengers, as Korobov could not manage to pull off a win with black on-demand. | Photo: Alina l'Ami TataSteelChess.com

Video

Former World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik liked to play the French and once described it as a 'difficult and dangerous opening'. But in this 60 minutes video IM Andrew Martin suggests an aggressive and little-used idea of the renowned attacking player GM Viktor Kupreichik to counter the French: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Be3!?. Andrew Martin uses the games of Kupreichik to show why this line could catch many French aficionados unprepared and is very dangerous for Black. Attacking players will love this line and the unusual complications that it promotes.